Self-Driving Car Kills Woman

Daily Conspiracy Writers

The world is nothing like you thought it was..

Many Americans (including myself) have dreamed of one day owning a self driving car. Who wouldn’t like to be driven around like Miss Daisy; napping and watching television instead of dealing with traffic?

Considering how many people are killed annually by car accidents, some researchers believe self-driving cars could even save millions of lives. This is sending major companies like Google sprinting to develop and release the first autonomous vehicle.

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However, this sprint may become a slow stroll after a recent accident involving a self-driving Uber.

The accident occurred on Monday, as a woman crossed the street in Tempe, Arizona. There she was hit and killed by a self-driving Uber vehicle.

“The vehicle involved is one of Uber’s self-driving vehicles,” said the Tempe police in a statement. “It was in autonomous mode at the time of the collision, with a vehicle operator behind the wheel.”

The vehicle was a Volvo XC90 SUV and it had a test driver from Uber also in the car.

The car hit pedestrian, 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg at about 40 mph in a 35 mph zone, according to the Tempe Police. The woman was walking her bike across the street just outside of the crosswalk.

“The vehicle was traveling northbound … when a female walking outside of the crosswalk crossed the road from west to east when she was struck by the Uber vehicle,” said the Tempe police.

Herzberg, who was homeless, was not killed on impact and was picked up by an ambulance, but ultimately died from injuries in the hospital.

“Our hearts go out to the victim’s family. We’re fully cooperating with @TempePolice and local authorities as they investigate this incident,” tweeted Uber.

“We are aware of the accident. Our prayers are with the victim, and our hearts go out to her family. Our office is in communication with law enforcement. Public safety is our top priority, and the Governor’s latest Executive Order provides enhanced enforcement measures and clarity on responsibility in these accidents,” said Arizona Governor Doug Ducey’s office in a statement.

Arizona is one of the areas in the U.S. and Canada, along with Pittsburgh and Toronto where the tech and logistics giant is testing autonomous vehicles, or cars that drive on their own.

But following the fatal accident, Uber has suspended its autonomous vehicle program in the in North America, at least for now.

Uber is investigating the incident thoroughly and this is the first fatality to occur from a self-driving car.

“Some incredibly sad news out of Arizona. We’re thinking of the victim’s family as we work with local law enforcement to understand what happened,” tweeted Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s CEO.

Both the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are also investigating the accident.

The Ministry of Transportation in Canada’s Ontario province, which oversees the autonomous program in Toronto is also looking into the accident.

“We will be following the situation in Arizona closely, and will consider what measures are appropriate as more becomes known,” said Bob Nichols, the ministry’s spokesman.

This certainly puts a damper on self-driving car development.

The state of Arizona has become a testing ground for autonomous programs.

In Arizona, the governor signed an updated executive order that allows self-driving cars without test drivers behind the wheel.

Google’s Waymo was planning to introduce a public self-driving car service in Phoenix this year. Intel and GM are also testing in Arizona.

On a national level, just last Friday, Alphabet and Uber advocated for the quick passage of legislation that would speed up the introduction of self-driving cars in the U.S.

But this legislation had been previously blocked and will likely have the same outcome in the future considering Monday’s accident.

This accident shows testing and development may have been progressing too quickly.

However, I have to ask, are we still safer in self-driving cars? Even with this recent accident, it seems computers are far superior drivers when compared to the average human.

22 Comments

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There are many different ways to win the powerball in America and few require buying a ticket The lawyers are Rabid

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The notion of self driving cars, like pilotless planes, leaves me horrified! Yes irresponsible people with cars or planes kill people, but computers can ONLY react as they are programmed, BY HUMANS, so still flawed, and you can’t program experience or instincts into them. Obviously, even a minor deviation from the program Tillerson’s in death, which an attentive driver would likely have prevented! We already have ample evidence (see collisions occurring in shipping and aircraft despite on board collision alert systems) that computers alone, NOT properly overseen by human operators, are JUST as deadly as inattentive human operators. Correct the humans or remove their privilege to operate motored vehicles!

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Computers are NOT far superior drivers compared to the average human. They are far superior under certain conditions, such as highways, roads with clearly and freshly painted lines, at intersections with traffic coming from more than one direction (a computer can look in two or three directions at the same time, a person can’t), and other such situations. Humans (who are paying attention when they drive) are far superior when someone steps out from between parked cars, on streets and roads crowded with people and vehicles, etc. An attentive driver can detect out of the corner of his or her eye if the front wheel of another vehicle has begun to turn in your direction before the vehicle actually does. So it all depends on whether the human driver is doing his or her job or is asleep at the wheel and what the particular circumstance is. The major drawback to a computer is that it encourage a human to be asleep at the wheel and I for one would never allow a computer to drive my car although I would welcome its assistance in making me a better driver.

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WHile the main advantage of computer driven autos is that they don’t have an ego, the previous writer is correct in that the software and hardware engineers have to be able to anticipate every situation the system will see in order to make it safe. That is a daunting task. Having spent twenty years in the unmanned air vehicle business, most engineers are not experts in accident analysis, instead focusing on function. It is indeed a daunting task to anticipate the stupid pedestrian and other driver tricks and have a plausible plan for handling them.

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One death during technological progress, compared with 30,000 annually with the current technology – and it brings out the Luddites. Obviously self-driving vehicles will save thousands of lives each year, the sooner the better.

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You are missing the point. Once this option is in place, we are setting ourselves up for a liberal victim campaign to restrict and regulate ALL Driving and TAX the blazes out of those that need to …or love to drive. All it would take is for a few “suicide crashes” in the name of anything FAKE OR REAL … and “Steering wheels will become a thing of the past”. And like alcohol, when women decided prohibition was the best way to stop alchohol addiction and give billions of dollars to the mafia “black market” crime syndicates, they will remove steering wheels and make us get illegal steering wheels from underground sources in Russia or Mexico. Steering wheels need to be part of the 2nd Amendment right next to guns. The right to defend my family and steer away from danger or those that would run into me with autonomous unmanned vehicles is to remain my constitutional right.

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These self driving cars only work (and only ever will work probably) under strictly controlled conditions. They won’t cope with real life situations as this tragic incident has shown! Once again, these wretched scientists are inflicting their awful creations on the rest of us and our stupid governments kowtow!

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The two computer driven destroyers in the Sea of Japan both ran into other ships when the ship’s computer thought that the rudder control had been relocated to the throttle area. I wrote a payroll program in HPL but taught the users enough code to read the line where it crashed and solve it for themselves 90% of the time. I am goint to ask my American Airlines piolet friend how much control they give the “autopilot”.

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I drive this road home 3 nights a week and have shared the roads with these vehicles for many months , there seem to be 12-16 in the Tempe ,Scottsdale area that I have seen. I grive the loss of life , and feel sorry for all involved. I have also seen the video from the incedent many times and I am not sure as quickly as she appeared that any human would have been able to avoid hitting her, but I will wait for the report and investigation to finish. You will hear about her homeless and possibly drug and alcohol problems, also you will hear about the drivers criminal background and of course the Lawsuits. I for one will wait for all the information to come in . One thing I know is there have been many pedestrians hit and or killed in the Phoenix area by drivers in March that no one seems to want to talk about , this in coming , now not as fast , but it’s here to stay .

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Who gets sued here? The State of Arizona for allowing the test, Volvo for designing the car, Uber because it owned the car? What does the program call for: killing the woman crossing the road illegally or hitting a brick wall and killing the driver? Is anybody asking these questions?
And…finally, I like to drive. Maybe we could get computers to take care of other things we do each day like eat our food, or take hikes, or watch TV and read books…maybe we shouldn’t do anything except sit still and shut up.

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I have read all of the article and the comments, some of the comments make a valid point but, there is one question not asked and therefore not answered. Was the “vehicle operator” able to override the automatic driving system and if so, why didn’t he/she do so? From what I have read, it appears the woman was in plain site and, If this is true why did the “vehicle operator” not override the autonomous system? Here in Texas myself and other drivers move over to the passing lane if possible when someone is foolishly walking with traffic instead of facing traffic, we also try to move over for bicycles. So, does the “vehicle operator” become the responsible party since he/she did not take over control of the vehicle? According to the news report, the victim was homeless so will there be a massive lawsuit and who will file it? Will it be some relative or family member who may have known she was homeless and failed to help her out in some way?